hike

India-based messaging app Hike is back on the acquisition trail after it picked up Creo, a hardware company that previously released smartphones, streaming devices and an operating system.
The price of the deal is undisclosed. Hike released a short statement late on Friday announcing the acquisition, although it does not appear that the 50-person Creo will continue to work on… Read More

India-focused mobile messaging service Hike landed funding from Tencent last year, and today it took a major step to emulating the Chinese firm’s WeChat app with the introduction of mobile payments.
The launch of Hike Wallet not only shows an ambition to build a messaging platform, it also means Hike has beaten WhatsApp, the chat app that dominates India, to the punch. Facebook-owned… Read More

India has a new tech unicorn. Hike, a four-year-old messaging app, today announced that it has closed $175 million in funding led by new investors Tencent and Foxconn. The Series D round values the company at $1.4 billion, founder and CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal confirmed to TechCrunch. Read More

Hike, the Indian messaging app competing with global giants like WhatsApp, is adding a quartet of Silicon Valley veterans as investors and advisors. These include Quora co-founder and chief executive officer Adam D’Angelo; Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg (who is also a co-founder of WordPress); Dropbox vice president of engineering Aditya Agarwal; and Ruchi Sanghvi, the former… Read More

Just three weeks after announcing the acquisition of Zip Phone, India-based messaging app Hike has updated its Android app with a voice-calling feature. When Hike bought Y Combinator-backed Zip Phone, which allows users to make Wi-Fi-enabled phone calls, CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal said that it would allow the company to add free voice-calling, one of its most requested features from users, much… Read More

Hike, a cross-platform messaging app based in India, announced that it has received $14 million in new funding from BSB, a joint venture between Hike’s founder and SoftBank Corp. In a statement, Kavin Bharti Mittal, Hike’s founder, said that the new capital will be spent on accelerating user acquisition and hiring. Read More

There’s no room at the digital inn for more mobile messaging apps, but that’s not stopping them crowding in. Hike, an Indian mobile messaging app that’s only been around six months but has amassed more than five million registered users in that time, is doubling down on its home market while expanding its accessibility further afield too. Read More